Monday, 20 August 2012

And the rain stopped,
and the sun shone, and we had to wear sunscreen, which made us all
sparkly – oh, the indignity! My birthday, so cards and pressies
with breakfast, and away to the south, heading for Stourport Junction
and the lock-mountain we have to climb to get to Birmingham.

Today I mostly did
steering, and not just through locks, which was fun, and rather
exciting, because somewhere between last year's debacle and this year
– and with the absence of too much breeze – it seems to have
gelled in my brain and I was mostly getting it right! Sunshine brings
out boats and joggers and cyclists and dogwalkers, and the towpath
was a busy place. Went back down through Bratch, where the
lock-keeper said that yesterday was probably the worst weather he'd
seen bar once, and the Severn is shut once again. I think we were
lucky.

Fields full of
black-and-white horses, (they were even sorted into spotted and
patchy) squirrels chasing up trees, a pheasant in a cornfield, and we
glittered on....

There has been
something odd happening along the Staffs & Worcs – someone
unknown has been leaving 'faces' ….on the ends of tree stumps, on
trees and on posts along the banks, two eyes, a nose and a mouth have
been nailed. It's not always on the towpath side either, so there is
a rumour it's a boater or even a BW man....

We water up at Greens'
Forge, get rid of some rubbish, and moor for the night below the
lock, conveniently close to the pub.

It wasn't an early
night, and we are pleased to manage an 0930 start, heading to the
junction with the Stourbridge Canal, where I hand over to Drew for
the turn (there are too many gongoozalers!). Stourton Locks are
really pretty, the side pounds lie to the left as you ascend, giving
some lucky homeowners a lovely water feature at the bottom of their
gardens, complete with water lilies and reeds and fish. The water's
reasonably clear, and we can see lots of different sorts of fish
from small fry to larger ones that I think are dace. Drew hangs over
the side with his underwater camera, but only succeeds in recording
blurry weeds and water.

A couple of kayakers
tell us that the Stourbridge arm is closed, because there is a
police incident. A narrowboater a bit further on says it's closed for
a couple of hours, so we moor up at Wordsley Junction (which is the
last place before we'd have to start up another lock flight) and Drew
goes to find out what's happening.

He returned with the
news that it was open again, so we headed for Stourbridge, along a
more cluttered canal with lots of white waterlilies (and the
inevitable clogging of the propeller), running beside the old
glass-making works and old warehouses, past small boys fishing, and
the police incident tent (there had been a body in the canal
apparently) which was just packing up. The Town Wharf was crammed,
boats moored two and three deep, and no free spaces.

With the help of a
bearded and bay-windowed gent from the Canal Trust, we turned in the
winding hole and moored beyond the bridge not far from the water
point. Had a reasonably early night so that the shore party could go
to the gift shop in the morning, and I did some necessary washing of
clothes.

Again, there are not
many boats moving on the canal – of the 4 we saw all day, naturally
2 were in the locks! The Stourbridge Flight (16 locks) has a
'mini-Bratch' partway up, and a very convenient off-licence at lock
9-10. Industrial elements creep into the scenery as we skirt round
the edges of Dudley; a bottle kiln at the Redhouse Glassworks,
boatbuilder's sheds, and Unknown Obstacles under the water. Now on
the Dudley No 1 Canal, we start up Delph Locks, which are
interesting- the run-off goes down a sort of sluice beside the lock,
pounds full of ducks and moorhens.

We clatter against
something submerged halfway up – a fisherman say helpfully 'that'll
be a trolley'. The last lock is under a road, and reminds us that we
are getting closer to Birmingham. We moor up at the Waterfront, a
large and rather flash development near the Merryhill shopping mall,
and check the weed hatch – plastic bags, weeds and a piece of old
climbing rope....

The cafes and
restaurants seem rather subdued even after dark, and we have a
peaceful night, with pretty (although pretty wasteful)
colour-changing lights.

Morning brings the
inevitable fact that we need a pump-out of the waste tanks. We check
the guide books to see where we might get one – not a lot of
choice.

We're heading for the
Netherton Tunnel, passing the end of the Dudley Tunnel at Park Head
Junction (you can only go through this by being towed by an electric
boat) and pootle along quietly. A couple of dredgers are stirring up
the canal, creating more mess than they seem to be removing.
Somewhere around here the anchors for the Titanic were assembled, and
the casings for Barnes-Wallis' bouncing bombs were made. A large
sunken rounded casing in the canal makes us think they may have done
a preliminary try out of the latter...

Looked to get a pumpout
at Withymoor Island, but they were closed (although you couldn't see
the sign until you'd practically moored up).

We water up at the
Bumblehole Nature Reserve, and head into the dank, dripping depths of
the Netherton Tunnel. This is probably the longest one we've done –
3027 yards – but is very straight, so you can always see an exit. I
do believe that tunnels are plotting against boaters, trying to turn
us into flowstone, drip by soggy, splattery drip....

We emerge, blinking,
into the light on the Birmingham side of the hill, and make slow
progress through ranks of fishermen lining the banks.

Hoped to get a pumpout
at Caggy's Yard, but had gone past the miniscule jetty before we
realised it was there. Hit the canal rush hour at Factory Locks –
interesting though, with working boats coming down the locks, with
unpowered barge in tow – this had to come down the lock behind its
powered unit, so we just sat and waited until it was clear, and then
alternated with several other working boats going through the locks,
resulting in close negotiations in small pounds! That done
successfully, I even navigated my first junction without mishap,
before the rain came on again.

Made it into the Black Country Museum
moorings (no space but a water point, and a self-operated pumpout)
and Drew went to get a card for the machine.

Lord High Panjandrum,
King of the Kharzi officiated, (with any number of bad puns and
off-colour song parodies) and then proved he is also the King of
Spin by turning our 68-footer in the smallest of spaces. Moored by a
small park, ready for a trip to the museum, and a welcome break from
travelling.

I'm not going to detail
the museum – you can read all about it here on their website. The
day was mostly sunny, with only a few showers, and very pleasant!

Thursday saw us back on
our way, wending our way through the maze of bridges and underpasses
and junctions that form the Birmingham Canal Navigations.

Under the M5, there are
odd juxtapositions of structures – footbridges to nowhere, Spon Lane Locks (which are a listed building) the oldest working chambers
in the country, roads that run over canals and under railways....

Summit Tunnel has a
tall archway, almost egg-shaped, and leads us to the last three locks
of our trip – Smethwick. They only have one gate at each end, which
is unusual, and the downstream gates are Very Heavy – around
2080kg. Drew celebrates by breaking into a sprint to reach the last
gate.

We weave our way around
some of the side-loops of the BCN – the Soho Loop, past the prison
at Winson Green and under Asylum Bridge, to good views over the city,
and round the Icknield Loop where the BW boats are moored several
deep.

Sliding under Sheepcote
Bridge we find ourselves a rare mooring spot opposite the National
Indoor Arena – and only a boat's length from where we moored in
2007. The place is FULL of boats - this is obviously where they've
all been hiding!

Drew changed from
boater into consumer, and headed off for the Bull Ring, and the Apple
store, returning triumphant (if footsore) with a new MacBook... and
the rain set in overnight.

Shore party paid a
visit to the National Sea Life Centre in the morning, before we set
off for our last night's mooring somewhere near Alvechurch.

And in Gas Street basin, disaster struck. We had to pull into the side to let a tourist
boat past, and he took so long that we got hard alongside the quay.
Drew hopped off to give the nose a push, turned to come back to the
stern and slipped. Didn't get up. Made 'painful' noises.

I managed to ge the
boat secured with the help of passers-by, and a very helpful lady
rang for an ambulance. Drew wasn't sure what he'd done, but he still
wasn't getting up. Many thanks to all the helpful people of
Birmingham, was were real stars in trying to sort us out. The
ambulance came, (gas and air) and diagnosed 'dislocated knee' – oh
hell. Needs to go for X-ray. We need to find a temporary mooring, as
we can't stay here. One helpful bloke finds another helpful bloke,
who goes to find us one. The ambulance crew help Drew up to sit him
in the chair to take him to the ambulance and – pop – the kneecap
goes back in. It's gone in right, so there's no need for the X-ray or
the hospital, which is a relief, so he's signed off and – after
profuse thanks to the folks who helped – we can go.

Driving is its own
distraction, and Drew takes the helm again to take us down to
Alvechurch, by the Cube and the University, through the Wast Hills
Tunnel, past Kings Norton Junction and the reservoirs at Lower
Bittell. We meet quite a number of obviously new-to-it boaters, all
heading for Birmingham, albeit erratically!

Mooring for the night
isn't easy, and it's a disturbed night, followed by an early morning
of packing up and cleaning out, before we reach the yard at
Tardebigge once more. The Anglo-Welsh guys help us moor and assist
with hauling our gear to the car, and we make the weird transition
from 4 mph back up to motorway speeds. All get safely home, knees
nothwithstanding. I guess if it had to happen, it happened at about
the 'best' place it could – after all the locks, and where we
weren't in the middle of nowhere.

Need to start planning
next year. A few changes in the wind...

Just for fun, my journal cover, above, and as usual, a map of our travels can be found here!

We seem to have got
into a habit of getting a bigger boat each year....although nb
'Silver Dove' is supposed to be the same class as last year's nb
'Lady Carol', she's actually three feet longer. No idea why! There is
a bit more at the stern for sitting, which pleased Mum, and more at
the front too, which was nice.

There are a few other
differences in fit-out; for one, she's the mirror layout, and
secondly – she doesn't have a hatch, which is a little bit of a
shame! However, given the weather, it would probably have been closed
most of the time!

For it has been wet...

Exceedingly wet.

A month or so ago,
there were closures of canals to conserve water. When we picked up
'Dove', the man at Tardebigge Wharf said that the Severn had been
closed to traffic because of flooding. Several boats that had gone
out on week-long trips had gone down to Worcester and had then just
come back, unable to complete the Stourport Ring. With a fortnight,
we stood a better chance of being able to wait until conditions
improved. Well, we hoped so!

Going clockwise, the
trip starts with a tunnel, and the Tardebigge Locks – all 29 of
them. Not exactly an enticing prospect for the first evening, so with
fingers crossed we aimed for a spot just downstream of the Top Lock
for an overnight mooring. One soggy tunnel and our first lock later,
and we found a spot with no trouble at all. Which struck me as a
little odd, unless everyone else had just given up on going up the
river...

It took us five hours
to get down the Tardebigge, refining our locking technique and making
sure my steering was up to scratch (or not-scratch, rather), and a
late lunch was followed by the 6 Stoke Locks, and 6 Astwood Locks.

Six miles, 41 locks,
and we are 290 feet lower than last night! Fortunately, a lot of the
locks were set in our favour, so we didn't have to do a lot of
waiting for them to fill. The scenery is rural, fields, trees, sheep
and cows, a distant hilltop manor house and regular chiffchaffs
calling from the trees. For regular followers of our travels, the
first 'tree-I've-been-dragged-through' of the holiday was an oak.
There were some rather nice lock-keepers' cottages, including one
with the most gloriously scented pale pink roses over the door, which
wafted waves of perfume as I descended into the depths of the lock.
The towpath was very busy, with dogwalkers, cyclists, hikers singly
and in groups, one lady on a mobility scooter carrying a bargepole
like a jouster's lance, who was working locks in a most peculiar
manner, kids, parents, old folks, a British Waterways man on a quad
bike - but on the canal, there were very few boats. The pub at
Hanbury Wharf was practically empty, according to Drew. Most odd.

Incidentally – there
are, as we know, horse and dog 'whisperers'. We suspect that Mum may
secretly be a 'duck mumbler'....

The canal south of
Hanbury is quite narrow, a result of a profligation of reeds and many
overhanging trees, which makes for things getting interesting when
passing/meeting the few other boats on the water (one guy said to us,
as we moved aside to let him go by, 'looks like you're mowing the
lawn!' - he, of course, had the clear water...). The rain came down
hard as we headed for Worcester, and despite hats and ponchos
sluicing the water off us, it still managed to find its way down
necks and sleeves and soaked up trouser legs. Didn't make sense to
stop for lunch and dry out between sets of locks only to get soggy
again, so we pushed on, to an overnight mooring in the security of
Worcester Marina, a shore party expedition to the supermarket, and
investigations on the state of the river.

The following morning,
with reports that things were OK, we set off through the city. Quite
interesting, with Civil War connections.and bridges decorated with
pikes and helmets.

Diglis Basin is really
rather posh – lots of warehouse conversions and waterfront
apartments- and there are two broad beam locks leading to the river,
which can take two narrowboats at a time. Naturally, there were two
going down ahead of us, so the assistance of a helpful BW man in
operating the huge gates was very welcome. The water gauge was at
amber, but only just, so it looked reasonable.

We took a big sweeping
turn out onto the river, and pointed ourselves upstream. The river
was quite smooth and reasonably calm, with no signs of debris coming
downstream, and the city waterfront past the cathedral was lovely.

Against the current we
were making around 3.5 miles an hour, compared to craft coming the
other way, which must have been doing around 8 mph! Beyond the edge
of Worcester, past the rowing clubs, the banks were thickly wooded,
and it took only a small stretch of the imagination to turn them into
rainforest sweeping down to the edge of an Amazonian tributary... the
weather added some verisimilitude to the fantasy!

There are three locks
on this stretch of the Severn; Bevere, Holt and Lincomb; huge caverns
of concrete with automatic gates, operated by lock-keepers. The
boater is guided in by a series of signal lights; you slip a rope
(fore and aft) around a steel cable fixed into the side of the lock,
which stops you rattling about like a pea in an oil drum, the gates
close and you rise swiftly to the top. The gates open and you head on
your way; it's all very efficient.

Huge weirs run beside
the locks, protected by floating barriers. I stayed up front to deal
with the ropes, and got a whole new perspective on the river, amidst
the swallows and sand martins swooping past on either side. We
spotted a couple of kingfishers on the way – well, Drew and I did,
Mum as usual was looking the other way....

We pulled into the
pontoon at Stourport so Drew could check out the entrance to the
basin. A very, very narrow set of two staircase locks, with an
awkwardly angled pound between them (you can just pass another boat,
but I was glad that I didn't have to!) adding weight to my theory
that if anyone can put a camel through the eye of a needle, it's a
narrowboat wrangler! Handed over control to Drew to pick our way
through the marina, all pontoons and moorings and boats, and people
trying to be helpful telling us where we needed to go, which
distracted us slightly and made it harder to get where we already
knew we needed to be!

This was followed by
ditherers at the waterpoint (if you pull up alongside a pontoon, and
don't say anything, it does look more like mooring-up than 'we're
waiting for the water point', you know, folks).

Now on the Staffs &
Worcs Canal, we moored up for the night just by the Black Star pub,
and were set upon by a swan. Her mate and cygnets took no notice of
us, (looked more embarrassed than anything, to tell truth) but she
worked her way along the full length of the hull attacking with beak
and feet and wings, until Drew finally gave her a gentle shove-off
with the blunt end of the boat-hook. She had another go when we left
in the morning, and I can only think she could see her reflection in
the paint; there was certainly a little less paint when we made our
escape!

Kidderminster is rather
bland; all the old carpet factories have been replaced by the boring
boxes of modern industrial estates. The lock rises from an underpass
below a roundabout into the environs of the town church, which is
rather nice, and there are handy supermarkets beside the canal,which
we availed ourselves of. Naturally, when a shore party is sent out,
it rains heavily!

North of the town, the
rural creeps back in, lush and green with some huge trees, and much
of the canal is cut through the native sandstone, which appears here
and there in waterscarred outcrops.

The weather improved
the following day, which helped with the 18 locks we went through. We
decided that, having got up river without losing any time, we had
leeway to take a side-diversion up towards Aldersley, which lies at
the bottom of the Wolverhampton Flight; we passed through these on
our Birmingham trip in 2007, and it's always nice to complete a
circuit!

The sandstone outcrops
grew larger, miniature cliffs overhung with ivy and ferns, and the
land remains green and lush and – generally – empty. We did see
herds of black and white horses, though, which is always nice, and a
canal trip requirement, and the locks, although spread out, remained
individual and interesting. Botterham is a small staircase of 2,
Bumblehole is below a small slanted bridge and is itself slightly on
the squint, so is interesting to get into, and then comes Bratch!

It's 3 locks, and
fascinating. It looks like a staircase, but it isn't; each chamber
has gates top and bottom, with a pound between the locks. But the
pounds are tiny – or appear so – only the width of the overhead
footbridge, and not long enough for a boat! Apparently the magic
happens behind the hedge, where there are side pounds and culverts
which feed the water through.

The lock keeper (who
has a rather attractive octagonal office) keeps you right about which
paddles to raise/lower and which gates to open – from a driving
point of view, it IS like a staircase, as you go directly from one
lock into the next. Ended the day at a rather soggy mooring near
Wightwick, and first use of the mooring-spikes, which put into action
my patent mooring-spike markers/buffers – tennis balls cut to fit
over the top of the spike and fixed on with cable ties. Works well,
but I don't think it's had the 'passing dog' test yet.

Today we discovered
'Ground Whales' - they lie in wait below the ground paddles of a lock
and blow out – 'whoosh' - to soak the unsuspecting
lock-wrangler....

The seventh day of the
trip saw the heavens open, and so much water fell that I'm surprised
we didn't see a passing Ark. Serious rain. We did 3 miles, and 3
locks, turned round at Aldersley junction, went back through the last
lock, and decided we'd had enough. Moored on a muddy bank beside a
growing puddle, and spent an afternoon drying out and generally
loafing. We're halfway through the holiday, and although there has
been some decent weather, the general trend is sogginess.

Having been away from home for quite a while over the middle of summer, I was fully expecting handwritten notes all over my post when I got home, requesting that I do some urgent pruning if I wanted to keep getting letters delivered; oddly, this hadn't happened - I think we may have a different postman - but a combination of a lot of rain followed by sunshine had resulted in the garden looking more like a jungle, and the honeysuckle rampaging wildly all over the window.

Inside, it was like the Twilight Zone. The living room was more a living gloom, with nary a ray of sunlight penetrating the foliage. Think 'Sleeping Beauty's castle'....

After a week in the dark - I mean, is it normal to need to put the light on at nine in the morning in summer? - I decided that the time had come to do some chopping back, bees and scented flowers notwithstanding. Of course, as soon as I made the decision, it rained, and the entire thing became a dripping, sodden mass.
Job postponed.

This morning, with the sun shining and having made an early start anyway to take the car in to the garage for much-needed attention, the task of 'hunt the window' could be put off no longer. Secateurs in hand, I made a start, and was soon covered in twiggy bits, leaves and the occasional snail. The more I chopped into the overgrowth, the more snails I found, clinging to the undersides of leaves or swarming up tendrils. When I reached the window at last, I discovered that I had been demolishing a veritable snail hotel, as small reproachful eyestalks peered at me from the corners of the frame. Several of them slithered off into darker corners, in an obvious huff.
Standing in a mound of chopped-off foliage, I figured I'd upset them enough for now, and started to gather it up to put it in the bin. A snail waved at me from the bundle in my hands... so now I had to go through the whole pile and extract the residents.

Now, the bin is full, and there is light in the living room again.
But the snails are not happy with me.

Friday, 17 August 2012

At first, I thought it was something to do with the hall floor being a hard surface. Whenever Mum went out of the living room, there was a louder step, almost as if she was stamping on the floor. Then I became aware that there was also a pause associated with it, something deliberate. I didn't say anything...
'I suppose you're wondering why I stamp on the floor when I go into the hall,' she said one night.
'It had occurred to me.'
'It's the spider.'
'Spider.'
'Under the stairs.'
'There's a Spider Under The Stairs.'
'Yes, in the hall cupboard. It lurks there, and sneaks out when it thinks I'm not looking. So I stamp at it every time I go out and it goes back under the stairs.'
'Ah. What's the spider done to you?'
'It's lurking. With intent.'
This seemed a little harsh to me.
So I've called it Suts, and speak nicely to it whenever I pass by.
Karmic balance, and all that.

Thursday, 2 August 2012

I've left this too long, and I need to
catch up, so I don't intend to blether on so much about our more
recent canal adventures... you wish!

Summer 2011 started back at Great
Haywood, from where we set out on the original 'Slow Boat Under Birmingham' trip;
a different boat, though – this year we have 'Lady Carol' (or
Elsie, as I generally call her when swearing at her to go round a
tight bend), 65 ft long with a hatch in her side through which
shopping can be passed and swans can look for food, a freezer and a
microwave, and some rather comfortable reclining chairs. Some of this
year we'll – almost inevitably when the canal system is involved -
be covering old ground (or water), as we follow the Four Counties
Ring in a clockwise direction.

The first couple of days saw us
skirting through suburbia, south of Stafford, where there is a mix of
private moorings, back gardens, pubs and hotels and holiday
villages, punctuated by ducks and a good number of rather deep locks.
We decided to practise the 'stick the nose on the gate' system for
going through locks, which keeps the boat reasonably stable with a
minimum of engine revving and forward and back motion. In an 'up'
lock, it keeps the rudder from getting bashed on the downstream gate,
and in a 'down' lock, it makes sure you don't get hung up on the
cill. You do have to watch for the fenders getting caught, but a
sharp pair of eyes on the forward gate helps.

An overnight stop at Gailey allowed for
a shore party trip to the Gailey Round Tower, before
meandering through flat and windy land studded with motorways, the
summit pound of the Staffs and Worcs Canal. By the outskirts of
Wolverhampton, it becomes a bit more interesting, with the narrows of
Pendeford Rockin' - only wide enough for one boat, so we went
through in convoy – and the tight entrance to the Shropshire Canal
at Autherley – narrow, under abridge and straight into a stop lock!
Watered up just after the lock, and headed on through a quiet
evening to find a mooring for the night, passing over Watling Street
by means of the Stretton Aqueduct, through some deep and heavily wooded
cuttings, full of bugs and badger diggings, to finally tie up at
Wheaton Aston.

The following day was interesting and,
on occasion, a wee bit dramatic. The first feature was Cowley Tunnel –
only 81 yards, originally longer but it had kept
collapsing (reassuring!) - the southern portal has brickwork, but as
you go deeper it becomes a cut through the natural sandstone, which
results in a rather lumpy and irregular profile (of both tunnel and
any careless boater), and there are several places where it looks as
if chunks have fallen from the roof....

A series of embankments carries us
along, with distant views of the Wrekin, a faint blue rise on the
horizon. Infant Yggdrasils tower over us in the deep cuttings, and we
try to shed the convoy of boats – we pull ahead when it's clear but
they catch us when we slow for moored boats. It rains, just to be
helpful. Into the depths of Grub Street Cutting, we slip under Bridge
39 - supposedly haunted by a black, monkey-like creature, though we
see nothing odder than ourselves – and head onward to Shebdon
Wharf, where milk from the surrounding dairies used to be collected
for the Cadbury's works.

The most impressive part of today's
journey is through Woodseaves Cutting. It's around 2 miles long,
almost sheer-sided with some dramatic evidence of recent rockslides.
It feels like a trip through another world, travelling on tick-over
so as not to start any more rockslides, and conversation is in hushed
tones. Drew and I speculate what may lie beyond the trees, and being
us, the speculation is of the ghoulish kind.... It LOOMS.. I can
think of no other suitable word. Sheer rockfaces on either side,
draped with long, liana-tendrils of ivy. Lush ferns spring from
cracks in the rocks, and out of a grey mist a bridge towers overhead,
a high arch, mostly concealed by trees, vaulting across the gap. It
feels like passing the Argonath to go beneath it. The towpath is
narrow, and so wet as to have duckweed.

We emerge at Tyrley Wharf slightly
dazed, and decide we may as well go down the locks tonight. As Drew
goes to open the Top Lock, the heavens open again. Gongoozaling
boaters head for cover, and we send Mother below as we start down. At
Lock 4, Drew points to some black and yellow tape on the lower gate –
the handrail is damaged. 'Think I'll go round!' he says, rather than
do his usual nifty hop between the two gates. Then he looks again.

'The notice says “Wasps' Nest On
Gate...”' he says, '...try not to hit it, I think!'

Right.

I steer slowly in, and sit at the top
end of the lock, just clear of the cill.

He comes back again.

'Another notice. “because of the rock
shelf, don't moor in the bottom pound. Set the lock and drive
straight from one into the other.”'

Okay... so we go down Lock 4, and I sit
in there, wondering about wasps, and hidden underwater rocky shelves,
while he goes to set and open the next lock.

After a while I spot the nest – it's
about the size of my fist, and in the hollow centre of the steel
beam of the right-hand lock gate – when the gate is closed, it will
be nice and snug inside the gate.
Right now, it's just about head
height.

Drew starts raising the second paddle
on the gate below, so I decide it's time for a cautious exit and
cross the pound into the bottom lock. The sides of the pound are
shallow and shelving,where the whole thing has been cut from the
surrounding rock. He goes back to (carefully) close the wasps in for
the night, and then we go through the bottom lock. There's a very
strong surge of water just below the lock, which has carved out a
hollow in the rock wall opposite – probably by flinging narrowboats
at it, if our experience is anything to go by!

We moor up at Market Drayton, and I
manage to splash hot oil up my arm while cooking dinner – ouch! The
domestic battery is also looking iffy, possibly not charging
properly....

After a replenishment run in the
morning, we set off to do the Adderley Flight, and then moor up at
the top of Audlem, ready to do that tomorrow. The shrieking spectre
of Betton Cutting fails to show up, and it's another day of greenery
and cows. The 240v circuit trips briefly while cooking supper. I
think it's the alternator, linked to the panel light that doesn't
come on at start and stop engines (my car did something similar.)
Drew thinks that isn't logical. We shall see.

Next morning is Audlem Locks and my
birthday. The locks are quite fun, apart from the chance of getting
ducklings stuck in the locks with the boat – with no wish to make
duckling pate, we have to keep shooing them out. We wanted to stop at
the 'Shroppie Fly' pub, but the length of the boat plus others'
shabby mooring means it's a no-go; if we have one major gripe (apart
from people passing moored boats at too fast a speed), it's poor
mooring – we often see gaps of 10 ft here and there between boats
who have tied up one bollard apart – if they'd tie up with more
thought, more boats could get into the short-term moorings. Ah well.

13 locks later, we tie up for a
relaxing evening, with all but one of the flight done, and settle
down to watch the first of the last Harry Potter movies, until the
240v circuit trips out completely....

We called the boatyard just before we
set out, to let them know about the battery, and organised to meet at
Hack Green, where the shore party want to visit the (not so secret)
Secret Bunker.While we were waiting
for the rain to stop, the engineer turned up, and – YES! – it was
the alternator. One small connector rusted through and requiring
replacement, and all is back to normal, and off they went to see the
bunker. (I think I've seen enough bunkers to last a lifetime!)

Now, I am aware that we do come home
with some odd souvenirs from time to time, but I think a training
version of a geiger counter may be the weirdest one yet....

From a mooring at Hurleston Junction
(by the turn onto the Llangollen Canal) we went through familiar
waters along the Middlewich Branch. The chandlers at Venetian Marina
has (oddly) turned into an antiques shop, but we could still get ice
creams, and continue on our way to Middlewich. The exit onto the
Trent and Mersey was congested, and followed by a narrow tunnel under
a bridge and gongoozaler scrutiny into Kings Lock.

Tomorrow we're
hoping to do 'Heartbreak Hill' (aka the Cheshire Locks) so a
mooring near Wheelock is planned. The landscape is an odd mixture of
rural and brownfield, where demolition rubble waits something to
replace it, and an odd works producing great heaps of white powder –
world's most obvious cocaine factory?

Sunday is a day of locks, in
sunshine,showers and a downright downpour! Most of the locks are
doubles, with a second chamber parallel to the first. This doesn't
necessarily mean the second chamber is working, of course – one was
full of concrete, several had missing gates, and one was a veritable
nature reserve with meadowsweet and moorhens.

We set off early, hoping to get moored
somewhere by the Harecastle Tunnel, and actually made quite a decent
shot of it, with the help of a very keen bloke who whizzed along on
his bike ahead of his boat and wife (and son, who rapidly lost
enthusiasm for cycling). He was eager to get into the locks once we
cleared, so aided with paddles and gates until the rain set in, where
we lost him. Hoped to do some shopping around Lock 41, but it being
1615hrs on a Sunday and this being England, for some obscure reason
the shops were shut, so we decided to go up and moor nearer the
tunnel. The water is murky here – very orange, with iron particles
from the water under the hill. As we ventured into the underworld
below the various rail and road and foot bridges, we were met by the
tunnel keeper – a very nice bloke – who said that for preference,
he wouldn't moor up here, and suggested we went back a wee bit by the
private moorings. If we were at the tunnel for 0730, he'd get us
through with the first batch in the morning.

So we went backwards.

Sort of.

Narrowboats don't really like going
backwards for any distance. Combine this with a strong water flow,
and deep silt on the bottom, and you have the recipe for an awful lot
of swearing from Drew.
And profligate use of the bargepole.

When we reached the tunnel (in time)
there was already a boat ahead of us, and several more behind; nice
tunnel keeper gave us a full briefing before setting us off into the
darkness of the Harecastle Tunnel. It's 2926 yards
long, and takes around 45 minutes to traverse...unless you are behind
a boat which is zig-zagging, bouncing off the walls, coming to a
virtual halt (looked like a group photo session), letting the
children drive, dropping to tick over, hitting the 'bollards' in the
tunnel, and causing everyone else to slow-speed-slow-stop as we
followed. In some parts of the tunnel there isn't a lot of head room,
which made things extra-interesting.

Breakfast and coffee was served at the
first opportunity once we were back in the light, and an
exceptionally helpful birdwatcher gave us directions to the
supermarket, so our supply hunter/gatherer was sent off.

This side of the tunnel, we are in 'The
Potteries' (Stoke-on-Trent seems to be an amalgam of towns rather
than a place unto itself); sadly, much of the industrial heritage
seems to have been lost to demolition – plaques mark the sites of
famous potteries, and there are a few bottle kilns but seemingly
little else. Got a pump-out at the Black Prince yard near Etruria,
before heading up the Caldon Canal, which begins with some
interesting wiggles and a sudden 2-chamber staircase lock, with huge
gates. Planet Lock, which follows, is a mere baby at 3ft 10ins rise.
The canal wends through the tended greenery of Hanley Park, beginning
in a very urban setting, becoming quite posh with some nice waterside
flats, before turning shabby-industrial and finally rural again, and
all very winding and narrow.

After lunch, we dealt with the lift
bridge, which like the one on the Llangollen, requires the boater to
stop traffic. How a solo boater manages we still cannot figure, as
you're on the wrong side with no way down to your boat – so having
lifted the bridge, how do you get your boat through? Drew did
traffic control, and I made a rather nervous pick-up on the far side
once he'd lowered the bridge.

Stopped overnight at Milton, for a
visit to the Abacus bookshop in the morning. Which is apparently
excellent! While we were tied up, we encountered a passing family
with a very enthusiastic small boy, who was getting excited over the
boats. On seeing us, we heard 'Ooh! What a big boat!' and then, as he
looked through the window at Mum, '..and it's got a GRANNY on it!!'

Cue collapse of crew....

The locks on the Caldon are stone
rather than brick-lined, and there are a lot of mason's marks on the
stones, which I decided to 'collect' as we went. Some stones are
intricately worked, with patterned surfaces, yet the spend most of
their time underwater. I can't imagine the same happening today. On
advice from the bookshop owner, we took the main branch,encountering
some annoyances in the form of a lot of insects (Drew took up
'cleg-dancing') and one Important Individual who stole the bottom
lock at Hazelhurst, wasting an entire lock-full, despite shouts from
other boats....prat!

Past the Churnet Valley Railway, with one
engine in steam as we passed, and a forlorn dredger parked in the
river where it met the canal, risking getting overturned if the river
rose. A gorgeous, sunny evening, and as we couldn't get a mooring at
the Holly Bush, pushed on up to the Black Lion at Consall Forge. We
can't go much further, as the boat is too big to go through Froghall
Tunnel, so we picked our way carefully past weir bridges, railway
lines and under the platform to the winding hole by Flint Mill Lock.
Moored below the limekilns at Consall, and Drew went to the pub,
returning with a carry-out of 'Black Hole', a rather molasses-y dark
brew.

Southwards now, despite a small
sandbar, and a kingfisher by the Knypersley feeder, and the efforts
of the 'Martha Gingers' who dillied and dallied about in front of us,
going Very Slowly, wrapping themselves in the foliage (which cleverly
meant that we ended up operating the lift bridge again) and then
messing up going through the staircase...this combined with a bloke
who drove straight into the bottom of the staircase without checking
if anyone was queuing to come down... result was an hour on a boring
bank waiting, and staring at the backs of terrace houses.

Left out of the Caldon, into the top of
the Stoke Flight (a Very Deep Lock). The canal goes under the main
Crewe-Stafford railway line, where the metal siding on the bridge has
been shaped to allow lock operations, and alongside the A5007 which
leads to the M6. Chugging alongside the rush-hour traffic and
backed-up lorries is rather odd. Then we were out again into a more
rural setting, and a gorgeous blue-sky-and-sunshiney evening, the
sunlight through the leaves and long grass, gleaming off the towers
of the incinerator....

Next morning it was off through
Trentham Lock to moor up for a visit to the Wedgwood Factory, and a selection of
trophies – small black bowls, a Turkish coffee cup, a lovely
blue-bead bracelet, and a couple of creations, Drew having made a
small blue beaker and decorated a flower pot, both of which will be
sent on when fired.

More locks through the afternoon, and a
mooring close to the pub.

The plan to moor for the last night at
a decent pub, followed by a short hop on the last morning came to
naught, a combination of shabby mooring, too many boats, and a long
queue at Weston Lock following a technical hitch culminating in a
total lack of mooring between our overnight stop and the Great
Haywood base. We could have gone through to Tixall Wide, but it
seemed that everyone else had the same idea, so Drew went down to the
boatyard to see if we could get in there.

Which we could.

So we did.

Easier said than done, admittedly, with
a lot of traffic at the junction, but thanks to the 'Ezekiel Dane' we
got round and moored up for the final time.

Very odd, being in the yard overnight,
but at least there wasn't the need for an early start!

Sunday, 27 May 2012

The weather has been - to say the least - changeable recently, with places that ten days ago had four inches of snow now basking in temperatures in the high 20s...yesterday we had the same temperature here in the north-east corner of Scotland as in Darwin, Australia.
Which meant that, for once, our spring beach clean-up wasn't a total washout! Eight valiant volunteers, armed with litter-pickers and rubbish bags, set about doing a wee bit of tidying up at Fraserburgh. I was in charge of refreshments, explaining what we were doing to the bemused general public, and recording all the various items found : in two and a half hours, we got at least 990 individual items, including 13 disposable barbecues. Two-thirds of what was collected was 'visitor related' rubbish (i.e. not thrown-overboard/fishing waste/sewage-related...you get the idea).
It was also a great opportunity for a spot of people watching... The sudden shock of the sunshine must go straight to the brains of folks up here, immediately disabling all thoughts of sensible clothing and sunscreen - the skimmed-milk skin of the average punter is immediately exposed to the UV rays to the greatest extent possible. Which results in a preponderance of lobster-pinkness as the pallid flesh is rapidly grilled to the broiling-point. I found myself wincing at the thought of how they would feel tomorrow, and slightly self-satisfied that I had blathered on the new Factor 30, half-price and supposedly with a 'golden sheen'. Being of a pallid persuasion, I need all the help I can get.
Crowds (well, in our terms "crowds" - at least 100 people!) made their way to the beach, with all the accoutremonts of the British holidaymaker - windbreaks, buckets and spades, frisbees and beach games tumbling out of overpacked bags, trolley-loads of beer and barbecue equipment (I feel our clean-up efforts will be un-noticeable by tomorrow morning), and over-excited children. There was a background soundtrack of screams as said children ran into the sea, to suddenly halt as the water reached a critical level and yelp 'IT'S COLD!!!!' before running back to the beach, where their doting parents pointed them back at the water to repeat the exercise. They breed them tough up here. This is the North Sea, after all, and it's only May.
The cafe did a roaring trade. An idiot on a jet ski roared from one end of the bay to the other. Offshore, the crab boats went about their business, followed by hopeful gulls. Soggy, sandy, barefoot children trailed after harrassed parents back to the car park.
I recorded the next sheet of findings on the laptop, looked at my arms to check I wasn't burning and made a Horrible Discovery.
Far from a 'golden sheen,' the damn sunscreen makes your skin sparkle. I mean, really glitter. Like disco gel. Like a freakin' cut-price vampire.... I retreated into the deep shade of the van, and prayed for clouds....

Sunday, 29 April 2012

Blogger's been messing about lately - lots of changes obviously designed to confuse and make things more difficult. (Bah, humbug!!) Can't say I like what they've done, but hey-ho, what difference does that make? So I'm just checking it still works!